Moe

Remember how weird it was when you first learned your childhood TV nerds were actually stupid? Like Tracey Gold, who seemed so smart on Growing Pains, and Jessie Spano a.k.a. Elizabeth Berkley, whose poignant account in yesterday's Page Six Magazine of how she got roped into Showgirls nearly brought us to excited, scared tears. Click the pic for the choice quotes.

"If you just looked at it on paper, it felt like a no-brainer." After all, the Basic Instinct team of director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas had just made Sharon Stone a household name. Her only concerns at the time were simple, she says. "I thought, 'Do I feel comfortable with this director? Do I feel like I will be protected in this?' Those things all felt like 'yes' prior to filming. After filming, I can't say I felt that way." Because there, of course, is when the media skewered the movie, unanimously crowning it the year's worst film.

"I think that was the part where I felt let down. I didn't feel like any of the filmmakers had my back when it came up — at all. Nobody stood up and said a word when the media was being so mean." She was all of 20 at the time. The actres says she took the Showgirls fallout on her own, promoting the film single-handedly when the other players backed out. "I didn't want to run away and hide. It was a nasty moment, but I found out what I was made of, I'll tell you that for sure."

Of course, these days Showgirls is recognized for the cinematic achievement it was and is one of MGM's Top 20-selling DVDs of all time.